The present invention relates to devices for holding textile articles.
The devices presently known for holding fabrics or similar materials, besides being unsuitable to grip the article without changing it, are above all incapable of overcoming the difficulties related to the automatic picking of pieces made of very light and thin fabric, one at a time, from a stack. In fact, the pneumatic and mechanical systems so far known do not solve this problem in a reliable and repeatable way for the following reasons among others: the former fail because they are unsuitable for air-permeable fabrics as the air passing through them may suck more than one piece, and the latter utilizes pins which may pierce through them and thus may grasp more than one thickness of fabric. In particular, such devices are not suited for very thin fabrics as for stockings and pantyhoses.
Another drawback encountered with the known devices consists in stretching out, by acting from the outside, a flattened tubular fabric, a basic operation in the manufacturing of stockings and pantyhoses which poses a problem, when using these devices, equivalent to the one taking place when picking up a single piece at a time from a stack.